During the so-called Victorian period in England, the practice of furnishing "calling" cards flourished--when guests visited the homes of persons who were socially proper and were sufficiently educated as to be able to read. The cards were normally discreetly deposited by guests in a tray that was placed on a stand near the entrance hall of the house, and they served to provide a host with the names of guests who had visited or made a social "call." While the social practice of leaving cards near a host's front door may have waned over the past two hundred years or so, the derivative use of such cards--for business purposes--has greatly increased. In the U.S., business cards have become more or less standardized at about 2 inches by 3.5 inches, and they serve a valuable purpose that is similar to that of the original calling card, namely, to provide printed information about the person who carries the card, or the company that he or she represents. Such cards are now routinely carried for distribution to others, as a professional courtesy, etc., at the time of an initial encounter.
Another custom that is pertinent as background information for this invention is the practice of accumulating information of the type that normally appears on business cards onto index cards--and filing those index cards in a holder that can be placed at a convenient spot on a desk. Such index cards are widely sold by the Rolodex Corporation of Secaucus, N.J., and they have a pair of spaced notches along a bottom edge that permit the cards to be held in a compact holder having a pair of parallel rails. However, the transfer of information from a business card to an index card is not without some risks and problems. For one thing, it is time-consuming for a typist to take information from one piece of paper (the business card) and type the information onto another piece of paper (an index card). Too, there is always the risk of human error creeping into the transfer process, such as transposing the numerals in a telephone number or an address, or misspelling a name. And if a name is not spelled accurately when it is transferred to an index card, there is the risk of possible embarrassment to the writer if correspondence is addressed in accordance with erroneous information on an index card.
It is only natural, therefore, that persons have tried to avoid the hazards that are associated with the manual transfer of information from a business card to an index card. One way has been to simply affix a business card directly to an index card--or at least a card that has the appropriate notches along a bottom edge, so that it can be used like a conventional index card. A variety of such cards are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,928 to Ristuccia entitled "Index Card For Index Card File." Another approach might be to provide a transparent, plastic sleeve into which a business card could be slipped, and provide the requisite pair of notches on the bottom edge of the sleeve. In fact, there are transparent sleeves that are sold by the Rolodex Corporation and identified as "transparent card protectors." However, the sizing of these commercially available sleeves makes it apparent that they are designed to be slipped over ROLODEX index cards rather than business cards. That is, the "card protectors" are about 2.25 inches high and 4 inches long, which is the same size as the conventional small ROLODEX index card. And when a business card is slipped into such a sleeve, there is not enough clearance for a holder's two rails at the bottom of the business card; therefore, scissors or a hole punch would be needed to cut away part of a business card so that it could be used inside such a sleeve.
Another product offered by the Rolodex Corporation is specifically intended to be used with business cards. This product is identified by the code BC-40 and is described in packaging that was copyrighted in 1992 as a "business card adhesive tab." The text that accompanies the product states "clear plastic notched tabs convert any business card into a Rolodex.RTM. style card." The ROLODEX tab looks quite similar to the "business card attaching strip" shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,452 to Chang, and it is 3.5 inches long by 1 inch high. That is, the ROLODEX adhesive tab is the same length as a conventional business card but not as high.
It is also known to modify a conventional business card in such a way that it can be secured directly in a conventional holder for index cards. This may be done by using a punch of the kind shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,143 to Merrick et al. entitled "Card File Punch." Regrettably, conventional business cards have become more or less standardized in size, but they are not at all consistent in the way that information is printed on a front surface. Business cards are printed by literally thousands of printers, most of whom have their own ideas of how certain information should be placed on a card for maximum impact, etc. Some cards are printed with wide margins all around the centrally printed information, while others have a lot of important information crowding the bottom edge of the cards. It can easily happen, therefore, that a Merrick-type punch could cut away some digits of a telephone number or numerals of an address during the creation of the required notches.
Another US patent discloses the step of affixing an adaptor to the bottom of a business card with an adhesive or the like; the adaptor already has the requisite notches to permit controlled holding (i.e., filing) in a desk-top holder, and there is never a risk of mutilating the business card. The patent is U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,523 to Merrick et al. entitled "Card File Mounting System," and it is similar to the aforementioned Chang '452 patent, except that the mounting members are not as long as the typical business card. Adaptors (also described as self-adhesive tabs) currently being marketed by Newell Office Products Group under the trademark "VALUABLE CONTACTS" are said to have been manufactured under this patent; but they are being sold in a so-called "automatic" dispenser box having a roll of 100 adaptors, so their relationship to the Merrick '523 patent is not understood.
Another card-holding system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,049 to Pearson entitled "Business Card Filing Attachment," in which two stiff juxtaposed strips are expected to provide enough frictional engagement with the bottom of a business card to "grab" it and hold it securely. Still another adaptor is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,897 to Horgan entitled "Card File Adaptor." The Horgan construction is distinguishable from other adaptors in having what are called "leveling tabs" for aligning a business card with respect to an adaptor before the two are fixed together with an adhesive. While the Horgan construction definitely offers an advantage over all of the earlier adaptors--in that it at least provides a one-direction alignment feature, it does so by introducing non-planar tabs or "bumps" into the adaptors. This has the effect of essentially doubling the effective thickness of a business card (with an adaptor affixed thereto) for storage purposes, and consequently cutting the capacity of a holder in half. And while Horgan does state that his tabs and/or bumps might be bent back into the plane of an adaptor after a business card has been affixed to the adaptor, it is not clear how his relatively small tabs or bumps could be manipulated or how much extra secretarial time this might consume.
In all of the above patents, bottom-edge notches are provided or created that are designed to mate with, and be held by, two parallel rails on a desk-top holder. In cross-section, modern rails may be described as having the appearance of a "T"; or, they may simply have an elongated member that is structurally suspended at the same place where the top of a "T" would normally be located. It is also known that some rails may have a cross-section that is more nearly cylindrical, such that the rails appear like two cylindrical rods of a relatively small diameter. The notches on cards that mate with these rails typically have wide internal voids that are connected to a bottom edge with narrow throats; the notches are often described as being shaped like a "dumbbell," although they actually have some similarity in appearance to only one-half of a true dumbbell (as seen in elevation).
While the use of certain adaptors has no doubt been beneficial in helping a secretary save time and avoid mistakes in typing, there has still been room for improvement with the techniques referred to above. For one thing, an adaptor like that shown in the Pearson '049 patent will take up a significant amount of front-to-rear space, as shown in FIG. 2 of the '049 patent. This would mean that fewer cards could be filed in a given holder, or the cards that are filed would be more tightly packed into a limited space. In fact, the drawing would suggest that only one-half to one-third as many cards might be stored in a holder--if Pearson adaptors are used instead of conventional index cards. Too, there is the matter of the neatness with which a plurality of cards are filed. When an adhesive is expected to securely hold a business card to an adaptor, it must be a strong adhesive, and so-called contact or pressure-sensitive adhesives are normally used. With such adhesives, there is no opportunity to adjust, correct or straighten any initial misalignment between an adaptor and a business card; such adhesives are designed to grab and securely hold almost instantaneously. So if there is any initial misalignment between a card and an adaptor, it will become an immediate and permanent misalignment. It follows therefore that there has remained a need for some technique for connecting a business card to an adaptor in such a way that their spatial relationship will be predictable, neat and orderly--without unnecessarily increasing the thickness of the combination. It is an object of this invention to provide such a technique.
Another object is to provide a separate alignment jig that will remove all guess-work as far as the proper orientation of a business card and an adaptor--before they are permanently joined together.
A further object is to provide a technique for quickly modifying a business card by connecting it to an adaptor, so that the combination may be rapidly installed in a desktop holder for index cards.
One more object is to provide an alignment jig that can be formed as an integral part of a storage container for adaptors, so that a secretary will not likely be caught in the condition of having adaptors on hand but not being able to find the tool with which to optimally use those adaptors.
Still another object is to provide a way of organizing and storing any of a variety of card-like items, including business cards, recipe cards, photographs, 3.times.5-inch index cards, etc., in such a way that they are neat and orderly, even though they may have been manually handled on a one-by-one basis.
These and other objects will be apparent from a reading of the specification that follows, as well as the claims that are appended thereto and the several figures of the drawing that are provided herewith.